Procedural
by KhamanV
Summary: Before C-Sec and the Normandy come into his life, a young Garrus strives to make a name for himself as a top investigator. But when a stakeout on a major arms smuggling case goes bad, he has to deal with the consequences of being the one to survive.
1. Chapter 1

_**Procedural**_

"_He who does not prevent a crime when he can, encourages it." ~ Seneca_

_1._

This is the job, and Garrus does not complain: Fourteen weeks of tracking paperwork, rustling boot grunts who were shocked and shamed to realize they had aided a crime, watching, waiting, and waiting. It was mostly the waiting that got to him, if any of it did, and he had been prepared to be in that phase for the long haul. It was just the job, and Garrus loved it.

He'd let his partner, Seiuus, have the fun part; going undercover and presenting himself as the bare-faced arms buyer. It left him in the place he liked best – handling the real meat of the investigation. The upcoming final capture. He let his neckflesh hackle slightly in a dose of private pride. Sure, he'd risen up the civic ranks right after boot camp like a rocket. Nobody gave him squawk about it; nobody rose that couldn't handle it. Nobody needed him to prove himself, though that didn't stop Garrus from thinking about his C-Sec father. At least he could live up to that. At least. Too much pride wasn't his way, but ambition? Privately, he had a little. A modest dose, to keep him motivated.

He let himself think briefly on his request to both the colony Primarch's office and Citadel Ops. He was young, damned young to be trying for a C-Sec post already. Three years out of boot camp, only one of it on civic investigations, and all of it petty-crime local. He hadn't really proven his chops yet, and on this one, Father's name wasn't going to get him far. Rise and fall on his own merits. Well, that was the life and the duty. It was his superior's ass if he failed, and the thought made Garrus cold all over. That brought him back to ground.

That and the hard rock wedged uncomfortably against his bony, thinly-armored ass. He tried to wiggle for a more comfortable position, the Haliat sniper rifle scraping soundlessly against dull orange stone, but there wasn't one. Not for lack of searching. He'd been squeezed into the tiny niche all night with his only company being his own breath hissing in the enviro-helm. Best vantage point for a stakeout. Worst place to sit on the whole benighted rock.

Spirits bless, he had come to hate the waiting. There was a lot of time left before the deal would go down. On reflection, he should have brought a book.

* * *

Seiuus landed on the scene shortly after dawn. The small, two-seater rovercraft pulled up to the designated place, a tall stand of jutting orange stone in the center of an otherwise totally bland crater. The meetup had been arranged for an airless, unindustrialized meteoroid just a hop away from Palaven itself. Garrus still had a perfect sightline to make sure it all went down just fine.

Seiuus was an unusually flamboyant, cocky turian with a set of foul jokes, a warped outlook, and a fondness for reveling in his own bad taste. It was an attitude that had gotten him knocked around more than a few times during boot camp. Garrus had taken him under wing, eventually realizing that turning him around was futile and it'd be far more useful to turn that energy into a benefit. His protests to camp command had been met with resistance, but a few unorthodox and wildly successful combat sims got Seiuus dropped into Garrus's squad permanently. Now they were partners on enforcement and investigations; Garrus quiet and calculating, Seiuus loud and fast. It was effective for their purposes, although not so much on a few human deals they'd broken up. One of them had laughed and explained their cultural cliché of 'bad cop/good cop' to them. Since then, he mostly just let Seiuus deal with the occasional human infraction; Seiuus's bipolar and whirlwind approach to the investigation tended to shake things out fast. Six feet plus of wild, pissed-off alien seemed a fairly effective tactic.

This had also made him the best option to present himself as a young, awkward turian itching to get into the black market. Someone claimed to be selling top-line Armax weapons, fresh out of elite military stock. Someone who had been damn good at keeping their face, much less their race, out of sight. Garrus wanted whoever it was, and a four month op had led to that day's sting.

Still no sign of the seller. Garrus watched Seiuus fidget, his suited feet tapping orange sand. He had sympathy, but only a little. His ass had long since cramped itself numb.

Ten minutes later, a slightly larger craft began to settle itself against the top ridgeline of the crater. Black ship, dimmed lights, no identifiable marking. Garrus's nose flared slightly. Waiting was over. Now it was time to watch.

The sniper rifle was prepped with a soft shot energy pulse cart; enough to stun, hurt like the proverbial bitch, but not kill, so long as he didn't make a headshot. Not much was going to make voltage direct to the brain less dangerous, but a leg shot meant the seller wasn't going to go anywhere in a hurry. Maybe aim for the rump. A kind of private revenge. His jaw flexed at the thought.

* * *

The seller was short – too short to be turian, far too tall for volus, too stocky for quarian, not stocky enough for krogan. That left plenty of racial options to guess from, but fewer walked that cocky. Probably human, though still not certain. Humans didn't have the whole market on attitude. That said, human infractions in turian space were getting bolder, and Systems Alliance weren't, in his opinion, doing nearly enough about it. Garrus's jaw clenched.

He made himself relax, dropping his opinions out of his current focus, and watched the figure – male, likely – approach Seiuus. A common earth greeting sealed his guess. The man offered his hand out, very polite. The man stood, legs akimbo, watching his partner twitch and jitter like a nervous date. No sign of backup, no crates either. This was turning out to be a 'feeling-out' meet, the seller trying to get a sense of his new buyer, check his reliability. His creds would be fine; Garrus and Seiuus had nearly overworked themselves getting a background set up for Sei Lekundus, a failed and virtually disowned young NCO whose few saving graces included a real patience with volus accountants, and a talent for turning a blind eye to things turian generally found nigh-treasonous. No shot in the ass today, then. Not enough evidence and more waiting to come. The thought didn't deter him. Patience was a universal virtue.

Garrus watched as the man suddenly put his hands up, as if waving Seiuus off. Seiuus's body language looked entreating. He grunted inside his helmet. The negotiations were going poorly, but he couldn't pinpoint why. He took a risk and flicked the transceiver on. Low pulse energy with a two second delay on what he'd hear. Not the best, but least likely to get picked up by any scanners on the seller's vessel.

"No, no, clean buy. I've got a resell lined up two clicks away, far away from Citadel. I don't know what you've been told."

Garrus swore to himself, breath hissing against the faceplate. Just in case, he leaned against the sniper rifle. _Okay, partner. Pull off. This is going to go nowhere if he got paranoid._

"I'm sorry, but my boss isn't liking the feel of this. Trust means a lot to him."

_Oh. It gets better. This isn't even the primary. _He swore again.

"Look, I've put my throat on the line for this deal. If I don't tell my clients I can provide for them, I lose face. Do you know what that means for me? I can't lose my honor." Seiuus tilted his weight, head cocked, the picture of desperate earnestness. Trying to lure the seller out.

The sizzle-pop of static; Garrus missed the response. The intermediary shook his helmeted head and stalked off. Seiuus ran a gloved hand over his own faceplate; a pointless symbol of aggravation. The intermediary paused, then turned back to him. "Let me signal."

The human went out of view. The connection between Seiuus's transceiver and the intermediary's cut off. Seiuus transmitted a low, pinging note to Garrus, one that meant _hold, developing._

Fifteen minutes later, the ground rumbled underneath him, vibrating through his suit. He steadied the rifle with one hand, scanning the empty sky for cause. A much larger craft, still unmarked, still black, settled above, lights winking along its bottom to mark an activated bay. A podcraft dropped, a one seater.

_I don't like this. This just got a lot bigger than we can handle right now. _With a vessel that size in proximity, he couldn't transmit a scratch code. He'd just have to hope Seiuus could handle it, get himself out safe.

Someone came out of the pod, in a black suit that gleamed with dim light. Garrus squinted at the figure for a moment, recognizing the 'aura,' then dropped his shoulders in startlement. _Biotic!_

Seiuus dipped his head in greeting, offering an open hand to continue negotiations. The figure – Garrus still couldn't make out details beyond the mundane: bipedal, taller than the intermediary, nothing else – remained stoic and cast in crater shadows. No clear shot.

Feeling a crawling unease, Garrus monitored the transceiver as Seiuus attempted, then reattempted, to make contact with this new presence. Silence. _Break off, Seiuus!_

His desperate thought to his partner came to nothing. Seiuus was abruptly gripped in a biotic's stasis, then thrown against his rover. The followup was a silent shot of pure, concentrated energy. In fate's final laugh, the shot bore the signature flare of an Armax 'Brawler' pistol. Very little would be left of his partner's head. Stones grated in Garrus's gizzard in horror at an op gone to its worst, and he was helpless to do anything else but watch the ship depart with its faceless commander.


	2. Chapter 2

2.

_"What's the scene?"_

_Seiuus gestured at him with the infopad, shrugging a little. "As you can see, we had two gentlemen in a minor financial disagreement." He stalked around the room, pointing out details as he went. "Came to a hitch over a transport contract, they'd had some previous history, our fellow's been in for instability a couple of time. Twitchy."_

_"He's a volus."_

_"He's a extra-twitchy volus. And pushy."_

_"All right..." Garrus flicked a talon at him to get on with it._

_"Not much else to it. They argued, pushed each other around the balcony, and this happened. Mostly by accident." He came to a stop by a bent, open-air railing and pointed down. The other volus, a sadly unfortunate older banker by the name of Drun, was being collected by two different reclamation teams on the two different balconies he'd ultimately ended up on. All of the techs looked a touch pale-blue around the mandibles. Garrus had a hunch they'd be dining light afterward. He was feeling sympathetic on that score. It had been a hard bounce._

_"Um."_

_"So in the end, I'd say the two of them simply decided to go their three separate ways."_

_"Seiuus!"_

_* * *_

Garrus let the gaudy fabric catch and flutter against the talon of his left hand. The right gripped it reflexively as he stared at it. He wasn't actually seeing the bright orange and yellow of the item, visualizing his dead friend leaning against a balcony's bent rail instead. The rest of the room was already boxed, plastisteel and hardened ceramic crates lined up by the wall next to the door. A troop would come by to take them, hand them out where they might be used, letting Seiuus live on in that way. Letting his soul carry on and perhaps guide another young turian. Spirits help them. His jaw quirked at the idea, a trace of turian smile. Only some clothing and a handful of oddities were left, things Seiuus's family had no idea what to do with.

He didn't notice the little turian in the doorway at first, or his mother behind him. It was the lightly flanging, immature voice that alerted him. "What's that?" Consonants still lisping a little against a youth-soft mandible. The boy wasn't yet of age for boot, not for a couple years yet. Too young to entirely understand why his uncle's things were disappearing, too young to understand the aftermath.

Garrus turned his head in startlement, perhaps a little too sharply. The child backed up and his mother put a steadying hand on his shoulder. Garrus swallowed, his hand still unconsciously flexing. "He said it was a 'Hawaiian shirt.'" He turned away again, features softening slightly at the recollection. "Bought it off a human trader we picked up for a flight-weight violation. Very minor, not a bad kid. Had a cargo hold full of pointless junk. Seiuus... your uncle bought it to help pay off the man's fine."

"It's ugly." A very matter-of-fact tone.

He rang out a laugh despite himself. It was simple truth. "He wore it once to the office, I recall. That I know of, that he got away with." It had hung on him terribly, billowing around a slender turian waist like a freakish cotton cloud of tacky. Garrus put the shirt down, not wanting to look at it anymore. He closed his eyes.

"You're shamed?"

_"Stolo!"_ His mother gently shook the boy's shoulder.

"It's all right, Tulla." He opened his eyes and gestured at her. "I'll talk to him for a little while."

Stolo's mother hesitated in the doorway. "Thank you. Um. What do you recommend I do with that thing?" She pointed at the shirt.

Another slight smile. "I'll take it."

She inclined her head and departed.

* * *

"So you _are _shamed." He'd sat the boy next to him on a wide container, and he wiggled there occasionally, asking random things about his uncle. Now he'd gone back to his original topic, like a guided missile.

Garrus gave him a weary look. "When you get a little older, Stolo, you're going to learn a thing called tact."

The boy sounded the word out, then rather obviously discarded it with a shrug. "But you did everything right, it wasn't your fault. You went by the book?"

"Yes, I did. That doesn't always change how you feel about things."

The boy looked down at his feet, flexing one little claw and then the other.

"This isn't about honor or duty, Stolo, it's just sometimes how we feel. So, yes. It happened. And while by the letter of our law I bear no blame, I can't help but think about what might have been done differently. Law isn't completely solid, can't answer emotions, it's just a bright light to guide us by."

"But you're getting demoted today." Stolo peered up at him, obviously confused. "So they think you did something wrong anyway?"

He harrumphed, a resonant little chuckle. "Not at all."

"I don't understand."

"You will; they'll teach you a lot of it in your first year at boot. Looking forward to that?"

"Oh yes!" That perked him up for a moment, and he wriggled before glancing down at his feet again. "But... why demoted? You're going down, that's not good. That means you misbehaved." His low, phasing tone implied he knew all about getting in trouble for bad behavior. Garrus's mandibles quirked a little, his jaw entire bending in a smile. Sometimes he forgot he'd ever been that young, getting all the hell-raising out of your system while you could.

"Not really. It's more like... something bad happened and my commanders want to be sure that I get to step away from it a little. Give me some time to get through all my thinking, and then, when I'm ready, I'll go back to the job I've been doing. There's no dishonor in this. It's actually a courtesy in a situation like this." _Well, it probably will set back my C-Sec application... a year. Or more. _An internal sigh, tinged with guilt at still thinking about it under his current circumstance. He let it go, still feeling slightly conflicted. His demotion would be a decision meant for the good of all, his well-being included, and he accepted that wholeheartedly. It didn't mean he couldn't be a little rueful.

"You're not happy about it, though."

"Well, no. Again, it's like grief. Knowing a thing doesn't always change your heart."

"Mm." A little clack of his thumb talons. "I still don't get it."

He patted the boy's back gently, thoughts beginning to go elsewhere. The hearing would be in only another hour.

* * *

In his three years since boot camp, Garrus had personally witnessed nine different demotion processes. Three of them had been simple interventions, turians who had cracked a little under pressure and gotten too far into intoxicants. They had all shaped up within months and were back on duty. The rest were of varying types, some similar to his current situation, and only one had been permanent. The affair was always tactful, brief, a listing of what troubled Command and how the turian could care for themselves and get back into a fit state. Not once had there ever been a human present. Technically, this one still wasn't. He'd waited outside Command door during the short proceeding, having held a hushed conversation with Garrus's immediate commander just before. After? A strange look exchanged between races and a curt nod, an implied consent to further discussion.

Stripped of his own command of an investigative ops unit, Garrus had waited patiently for further orders. They were not what he had been expecting – rather than a gentle exhortation to rest at one of Palaven's equatorial retreats to rebalance, he had been told to arrive at the nearby Alliance embassy at 2100 hours.

* * *

"Agent Garrus Vakarian?"

He tilted his head, a motion meant to politely correct an error. "Presently just Garrus, sir."

"Mmhm." The man put his hand out in greeting. Tall, pale, green eyes. He wasn't skilled at guessing human age, but this one wasn't yet wrinkled. Middling, perhaps. A relatively unremarkable human. "I'm Captain Gabriel."

Garrus ignored his memory's internal jerk at the gesture and gingerly offered his own out to shake. Fragile human hand. His jaw quirked imperceptibly. He held no real animosity for humans, but shared the general cultural coolness towards them. Though his logic saw both sides of the invasive encounter at Shanxi, he was inclined to tilt his sympathy with the turian legions that had fought there. "Captain," he murmured.

"Have a seat."

The office was lightly furnished, the smooth buffed steel and carefully bland fabrics of either a soulless cultural ascetic or an architect working on a low-bid government contract. Garrus examined the walls quickly – a vidscreen, otherwise featureless ceramic over metal, a window with a junk landview and the barest hint of sky. Desk with another vid, a light, basic computer... nothing for him to grasp onto, although the absence of facts itself told him it was a spare office. He'd glanced into a couple of the other offices as he'd gone by, noting plants, kitschy coffee mugs, and general clutter. This captain wasn't here regularly. By his caution settling into the chair on the other side of the desk, it might even be the first time he'd visited the embassy.

"What brings you here, Captain?" _More to the point, what brings __me __here? _He took a chair himself, the piece of furniture designed for humans and set far too stiff in the seat. He shifted his weight a little to compensate and then gave himself up to the idea of being permanently cramped in the ass. Apparently it was to be his destiny.

"You ran a four month long investigation into a military arms dealer, lost your partner on stakeout the other day."

"That is the accepted summary of events, yes, sir." He kept his tone as neutral as possible, to match the neutrality of the captain's statement.

"Mmhm. I've asked your commander to give you to us as a consultant, an assistant investigator in the matter. He's agreed in the main, though I'm informed it's still up to you."

Garrus considered. It was, in his experience, a highly unusual request and it implied Alliance involvement in the case._ Previous_ involvement? The thought began to form a pearl of irritation. "My files are already open to you, I'm sure."

The captain cleared his throat. "I read them. You tracked an irregularity in some paperwork through two shell accounts and a half-dozen witnesses and tallied it up into a major arms deal, then tracked local spaceways, cargo gaps... You also confirm that you saw a biotic, in an unmarked black vessel, and that you personally saw Armax weapons in use?"

"Yes, I did. Everything's there, I'm not sure what else I can offer."

"You got that much and more in four months."

_We're talking crosswise from each other. Do all humans do this? _"Seiuus – my partner and I spent a great deal of time on the matter. It was our primary investigation."

"Systems Alliance has been tracking him for two years, ever since he popped up working with an intricate crime ring that we still haven't had much success cracking down on. He's not alone."

Curiosity overrode his growing irritation. "Who is he?"

"He's a salarian, Lorben Krent. Dropped off their radar entirely, skipped out on a promising intelligence career, took a good chunk of his base's armory with him. Started there, built his business up the old fashioned way. Grunt work, a little murder, and a lot of contacts. Guess he didn't think the volus knockoffs of turian gear were good enough, decided he was going to go for top stock." The captain tapped fingers across the desk and a grainy station vid began to play on the wallscreen. Garrus got his first good look at Seiuus's murderer and his guts and gizzard shifted unpleasantly at the building anger.

"You've got his name, you've got _footage_, and apparently you knew he was going for us, but we didn't know anything about it until now?" Anger went icy hot and a talon clanked irritably against the chair arm. His feet flexed. He wanted to tear.

Captain Gabriel showed no reaction to the outburst. "If someone so much as winks at him, he drops everything and takes off who knows where. We decided, with permission from your commander," and at this the man's look grew pointed. Garrus's jaw still worked. "That not interfering with your investigation was the best bet. Your team had gotten under his radar, got closer to real-time information on his activities than we'd managed. Son, you got a meeting set up. We never got that close." He shut off the recording. "Out here, he had fewer resources, changed his methods, none of the backup he's been enjoying the last couple years. He got greedy, took extra risks. We think that got you a chance to get close to him before he shored up all the chinks in his armor. That still means we were doing our best, but your team was doing a hell of a job.

"We could use that insight, get him taken down once and for all. Maybe even blow a few holes in his network, agent."

Gabriel stressed the last word deliberately. It carried the final implication of turian command. Despite the captain's phrasing, it meant Garrus really had no choice but to sign on. By rights, the title _was _still his; he just had no squad command and no investigation currently underway. This captain, however, said he did. At least the latter. Garrus felt uneasy, and it showed in his posture and face. Anger still lurked, even with the situation explained, it still hurt to learn that his friend's death might have been avoided after all. He dipped his head in acquiescence, eyes not meeting the human's.

Captain Gabriel leaned back in his seat. "I respect if you still prefer your time away from the case, however. Human agents wouldn't even be permitted to work with a case under these circumstances, but your commander assures me your people's tradition is somewhat different. You'd be working with us directly, onboard my ship as what we're calling on the books an independent consultant. As per turian hierarchy, you're both agent and liaison, however you'll also answer to me."

"Sir. I'm at your command."

A broad smile. "For what it's worth, I have a few friends in C-Sec. I understand you have an application there."

Pause. "I do, sir, but I believe it's presently tabled as per my demotion."

"Well, we'll just see how everything turns out, shall we?"

Garrus's thoughts churned. "Of course, sir."

"Be at the shipyard at 0900 tomorrow."

"Yes, sir."

"Dismissed."


	3. Chapter 3

3.

First Fleet's_ SSV Cairo _hung silent, always silent in space, close to the mass relay. Distant stars from distant galaxies winked in unending night, veiled by wisps of dark red nebula. It still humbled the tiny, mortal forms within the Alliance cruiser and they did not look out too often. Not so far from home. To know that they had conquered their galaxy and seen so much – and to know there was still so much _more _out there that they could never even hope to reach. Their races had spread so far, and it was still nothing compared to the vastness beyond the galaxy's rim.

Early human spacers had been rumored to go slightly mad at attempting to comprehend their place in the universe. Turian explorers had fared slightly better in the telling, gone stoic, gone inward, speaking only of what they had seen and learned, and not what they thought when faced with interminable solitude. There was an asari tale, a ballad, of a great ship that had plunged out to see how far it could go, and human navigators claimed that, on the most faint channels, they could still hear the lost asari vessel singing from the depths of dark space.

Garrus believed in none of it, but there was little else but stories during long waits. The first lesson learned, now learned again – patience is an investigator's key tool. He was not perfect at it, some of his supervisors concerned that he might bear more hotheadedness than was necessary for young turians, but he marked himself better than his human counterparts.

A third week of fruitless communication interception and the ping-pong games they had invented to pass time and energy had grown ornately complex. When the shift watches changed, a handful of them would take over an empty cargo bay, drop its grav field, and begin a ballet of ball swaps and counters that would have dazzled an advanced physics student. Garrus had to admit it was moderately impressive to watch.

For his part, in the long wait while seeking coded communiques from one hidden ship to another, he read.

Captain Gabriel had given him relative _laissez-faire_ onboard the cruiser. His quarters were simple and blessedly private, with a small office annexed to it where he examined and re-examined evidence late into the 'night' cycle of the ship. The office's comp was connected to the ship's main network, giving him access to public files, officer comm lines, an emergency outside line to both turian and Citadel command, and, most importantly for long waits, a full codex of Systems Alliance's history and culture. On a recommendation from one of the lieutenant investigators, he'd been amusing himself with the works of a Dashiell Hammett and a more recent author, Ezra Harrington. The investigations within the novels themselves were often archaic (at least in Hammett's; Harrington held a fondness for unrealistic skim-battle showdowns featuring interceptors manned by burly heroes), simplistic to his experience, filled with cultural reliance that he lacked, and yet he found them amusing. Comforting, even. Certain things were standard beyond all cultures: criminals would lie where possible, mysteries always resolved themselves to something more prosaic than they first appeared, and the motives themselves were simpler than expected. Greed. Lust. Stupidity.

In human literature, though, most of them seemed to always 'get the girl.' He rarely even managed to find time for a date on Palaven. On the other hand, Seiuus – and here his blue-blooded heart panged again – never seemed to be home alone if he could help it. Well. It was the life. His, anyway. In the end, it was the only one he could answer for.

* * *

The soft _ping! _of a comm alert stirred Garrus from his thoughts. He pushed himself back from the screen, shaking his head slightly to reassert himself in the here and now, and pushed the response key. "Yes, Captain?"

"Ops meeting, 1400 hours. We have some new signals to examine."

"I'll be there."

The man rang off. Garrus began to recompile his reference list and timeline, refreshing the facts of Krent's recent activity. He took another look at the Systems Alliance dossiers on Krent and his crew, noting something that had been troubling him.

Or rather, a lack of something.

* * *

The team met around a long, oval table of darkened matte steel. Seven members of Gabriel's handpicked investigative team, Garrus, and the captain himself sat around it. They shuffled infopads to each other, checking and rechecking each other's conclusions. Minutiae, attempts to condense fact from the vapors of nuance. No real leads. The signals they were examining were little more than old trails. A contact from an informant in one station, a handful of theft reports elsewhere. There were some paperwork irregularities with a registered Alliance vessel using the Shanxi-Theta mass relay, but the trail dried up as it reached Citadel space. Garrus watched the data for that the closest, a jumble of registered vessel codes and ship numbers scrolling down the pad. It _felt _right, but he had nothing more than that.

A com channel connected the _Cairo_ to Captain Gabriel's superior, Admiral Volansky. It pinged softly now and again, the admiral listening in while doing whatever it was admirals did in their offices. There were occasionally brief chats between the admiral and the captain as the team worked.

Ravikumar, one of the junior lieutenants assigned to the case, leaned over and examined the traffic data Garrus was absorbing. "Something about that, right?"

"Mm." Garrus put down the pad, thinking hard. The blackness of the ship made for an easy palette for cover jobs. Codes, though. Traffic patterns, engine signatures...

"It's not easy to spoof a registry like that. If it's not Krent, it's something else we should probably snap."

Garrus shook his head, still half in thought. "Why would he be using Alliance registries in the first place? If they're difficult, use something else. Krogan codes would be cheaper, I'm sure he's got volus contacts. It doesn't make sense."

"Well, if he _can_ pull it off, it's that much more solid-looking."

"If it were that solid, we wouldn't even be looking at this. No, it's... sloppy, somehow."

"I know, I've definitely got a hunch about that. I definitely think it's him."

Garrus was unable to stop a soft, derisive snort through flared nostrils. The lieutenant tilted his dark head at the turian. "What?"

"I don't like hunches. They're dangerous."

"It's just intuition, your mind pulling together facts-"

"Before you _know _all the facts. You jump into a bad situation without knowing everything about what you've got and what might be on your six, and the next thing, kid, they're-" He cut himself off. Across the table, Captain Gabriel shot him a look. He was holding another soft conference with the admiral. "Next thing, you're packing up someone's gear. Or someone's packing up yours."

Ravikumar shrugged off the harsh tone. Most of the team had been like that since he'd come on board. Capable of simply absorbing conflict and coming out of it with no offense taken. Garrus found himself with a grudging admiration for the attitude. Humans were slowly growing on him. "That can happen even if you plan everything out."

"True," he admitted, feeling another pang. Garrus picked up the pad again. "I just feel there's something in all this we're not seeing." He put it down again. "Captain?"

"Agent."

"Have we received all the information about Krent's crew?"

"Everything that's available, agent."

Garrus pulled up the dossiers and scanned them again. No, he hadn't magically missed something. "This is as up to date as our informants have gotten."

"That's correct." The captain paused. "Something wrong?"

"Krent's intermediary was a human. There's no human listed in the logs. It's a big position in Krent's gang to miss, one of the spotters should have seen him. At the very least, it'd be sometime when coming out of Citadel." The captain continued to look at him, saying nothing. "If they're running on SA codes, then it would make sense they'd trot out the right species to look good for security. Not to mention, I _saw _him."

Admiral Volansky cut in. "That's not verified, agent."

"Sir?" he blurted. His temper flared up at the human's tone and he tried to stamp it down.

"We can verify you saw a humanoid, bipedal presence. There's no evidence on the scene to indicate his species for certain." Light condescension.

"He acted pretty damned human." The stamping wasn't going very well.

"We're working on _facts_ here, agent, not your_ hunch_." The admiral's voice was edged with surprising anger. A tic started in Gabriel's cheek while Garrus shared an interspecies, universal look of _what the hell? _with Lieutenant Ravikumar. The lieutenant mouthed _weren't we just discussing this? _at him. Garrus shrugged, while across the table a senior lieutenant's eyebrows raised into her hairline.

"Inform them, Captain." A low bleep as the admiral cut connection.

A low, droning "Ooooookaaaay" came from someone at the far end of the table. Gabriel shot them a sharp green stare.

"The admiral's been supervising our work nearly from the start. He's got a lot invested in it, he just wants to make sure we connect all the dots and do this right." Murmurs of assent around the table. Garrus kept his mouth shut. It wasn't the first time the admiral had been harsh with the team. Unduly so, for a superior, in Garrus' opinion. Back home, someone would have long since had a private talk with Volansky. For the sake of his team's morale, at the very least.

"The other reason I called for an ops meeting is to notify you that last night we received a go-ahead on a major engagement. We're having a hard time following the past, but the admiral and I think, based on your work, we know where Krent's going to show up next. We have a team in place in the lanes around Treyarmus, in Hades Gamma." The captain gestured to the infopad in Garrus' hand. "There's an indication that the vessel you've tracked is likely headed there. We'll board any suspicious vessel and restrain the crew till we investigate fully."

"Do we go along, sir?" Garrus tilted his head. "I'm prepared to assist a field crew."

"I'm aware you'd be a solid asset if this goes to combat, agent. Admiral Volansky tells me they have it in hand. We have two frigates in place with a marine squad ready to jump onboard. We're working support, helping to monitor the raid as it happens."

The lieutenant with the eyebrows, 2nd Lieutenant Margrace, broke in. "When's this going down, Cap?"

"After 0700 tomorrow, earliest."

"So, that's it." Ravikumar shrugged. "Might be over, easy as that."

Garrus' mandibles flexed. His instinct – _hunch –_ said it wouldn't be near that smooth. He thought of the intermediary, that distinctly human gesture of greeting, and something in his gizzard shifted uncomfortably.


	4. Chapter 4

4.

Thirteen men formed the marine squad. They waited in the hold of the _SSV Vaslui_, a frigate used to long patrols and quick responses. The assistant lead, a wiry lieutenant named Martin, fidgeted while adjusting the audio-video link he was charged with maintaining. He swore occasionally as he wrangled the camera, ripe, verdant language that would have horrified an elcor and possibly made a krogan take notes. Now and again, he was jostled as patrolmen tried to elbow by and take their push positions.

On the other side of that link, the _Cairo_ kept watch. Investigators followed both the big screen and made notes on smaller copies feeding to linked infopads that lined consoles. Nobody remarked on the florid commentary coming from the audio feed, but a few inspired remarks caused soft snorts. Captain Gabriel had given a surprise order to move the vessel into orbit in the neighboring system of Farinata. It improved the feed by several seconds, the quality of it less so. Garrus glanced at the captain. The man seemed tense, but that was logical before a major operation. Garrus was tense enough himself. The elements of surprise and marine pressure-tactics ought to be more than enough to overrun a ship of smugglers, but they would be well armed and their numbers were uncertain.

A soft ping emitted from somewhere within the frigate hold and a garbled conversation took place. Gabriel examined a scrolling screen and remarked, "Ship coming." Another ping. "Arriving in Treyarmus._ Vaslui, _report."

A comm elsewhere in the room chirped, a signal from the frigate's command. _"Frigate, unmarked. Verifying target vessel. Engines offline. We are preparing to go in."_

Then, silence. The marines shifted from foot to foot, ready to breach and sweep.

_"We're locked. Breach in 3...2..."_

One of the marines did something with the hold door that Garrus couldn't see. Probably prep for boarding. A flurry of activity as marines made sure their environmental suits and helmets were in place as the hold door opened, and then a flare of abused metal blinded the vid feed as a woman in the front cut the lock on the black ship's entry. Within five seconds, they were inside. Rear patrol jammed the door shut and re-established the seal while front patrol swept in and claimed empty space. _Cairo _listened to it all through Martin's link.

_"Front patrol, forward. Flank, left, watch for jumpers."_

_"Aye." _Then. _"Nothing over here, sir."_

_"Right patrol, check in."_

_"No movement coming from this hold."_

_Vaslui _command interrupted, the transmission scratchy on the secondhand signal Garrus observed. _"Verifying life signs. Soft shot ordered." _Garrus grunted. Alliance wanted a live capture out of this. He didn't agree, but nobody asked him.

One of the unseen marines behind Martin let out a cry of discontent at that, to which Garrus felt more than a little sympathetic. _"What the fuck? We've got them cold!"_

A hissed command down the line hushed him. Patrol lead spoke up again. _"Roger that. All points, move forward. They may be on Command deck."_

Shaky footage as the squad moved down corridors lined messily with crates, occasionally fanning out to secure locations. Martin was called over to get footage of one lockdown, a cargo hold lined with huge cartons. Martin emitted a low whistle. _"You getting this? Armax, no fucking kidding. They got Kassa, too. Goddamn, I hope they're not wearing that." _More rustling. _"And, um. Some geth shit. Are you fucking kidding me? Who is this asshole?"_

"A guy who really likes toys," mumbled Ravikumar from somewhere behind Garrus.

"And money," Garrus added. The contents of that single hold marked Krent as a very rich dealer. More than enough motive to keep his job. The lack of guard presence on the hold was worrying, though. Very worrying. "Suggest they move to lethal shot, sir." No response to him directly, Gabriel was involved with a quiet communication. Probably Volansky. By the tense expression, almost certainly the admiral.

So far, the marines had been onsite for five minutes with no boarding notification given. Surprise was still theoretically on their side. Garrus' jaw flexed.

_"Moving onward and upward. Watch your six."_

Still nothing. More crates, more boxes.

_"Coming up Command deck. God, this place is a mess."_

"Watch your surroundings, _Vaslui._" Gabriel's fingers tapped anxiously on the console. A soft ping as his communication with Volansky shut down.

_"Shit!"_

_"Cover, now!"_

Light dotted the air and whited out the video feed as Krent's crew attacked. Several men poured forth from behind crates and hung around Command deck's doors. Sounds of shouting, screaming punctuated the encounter. Martin hung back with rear defense, he and the camera darting out to provide cover fire. Krent's men entrenched themselves, doing similar. Assault rifles rattled and a marine fell. Then another. Someone screamed orders in salarian – Krent.

Martin ducked around again, spraying fire as a patrolman readied a push. A small, pale face ducked back and away. The patrolman's assault failed and half the squad attempted to fall back. Two more marines down. Krent's men were whittling away as well, but nowhere near as rapidly.

The telltale aura of a biotic throw. Garrus's heart lurched at the sight. The camera followed as a marine fell against a far wall, where he didn't move. It was the lead. The man's head hung from his neck at an unnatural angle. Now in charge, Martin began to bark a strategic retreat. Only four marines were left to fall back and they did so, taking heavy fire. Less than two minutes since combat began.

Krent himself appeared, a black battlesuit hung on the lanky figure and an Armax pistol clutched in his hand. Behind him, that pale face darted into view for a split second and hid away again. Something flew. _Small pulse grenade_, Garrus thought. A box next to Martin exploded, and a whine obliterated any useful incoming feed for several seconds.

"It's an ambush," Garrus blurted, realizing. "They were ready."

The captain looked at him, his expression unreadable, his skin stone white.

"We need to jump in now, Captain, they were _ready." _The vid feed began to crackle. Two more marines and Martin were left now.

Margrace spoke up. "We've got time before they warm up the engines and jump again."

"No, we don't. They'll jump within moments. Never shut down the engines. We can catch up to them at Attican, it's the next major nexus. Guarantee he'll go there and he won't be expecting a second attack." His jaw twitched as a sound shrieked over the feed. Men shouted, and the video feed shifted dramatically to a ground-level view of debris and black-booted feet. Martin was likely dead. A small, slim figure darted by the camera, with a close whining shot ensuring the APL's fate. A smashing sound and the feed ended, all screens gone black. Garrus pulled his infopad from the console and clutched it with tight, pale hands. A talon clacked. "Captain!"

_"Enemy frigate's blown the door. They're loose." _Then. "_Vaslui itself is starting to take fire. We're falling back."_

A short, firm nod answered Garrus and Gabriel finished barking orders to helm. Gravity shifted as _Cairo _woke up and began to move. Gabriel began to turn towards his office, face tight and angry. "You ready for combat, agent?"

"Yes, sir!"

"Get your kit. You're taking lead." He paused, then gestured Garrus closer. "Between us, agent?" Tight, grim smile. "I don't give a damn if you take prisoners or not."


	5. Chapter 5

5.

Optics were online, his suit's shields were at full power, and the assault rifle rested easily in his hands. There remained the sense of deja vu underneath his ready battle-anger, a kind of dread born of having just seen the actions Garrus was about to undertake done by others who now lay dead in the hold of a criminal's ship. If they had not been merely jettisoned into space.

Humans crowded around him. Ravikumar, small and spritely in a tactical suit, Margrace at the ready to blow the hatch. She mumbled to herself, words he didn't understand but that sounded lyrical. Latin, he recognized dimly. The language and its faith had made some inroads into turian space, the concepts of forgiveness for trespass against purity appealing to some. He held no patience for it, no room for such introspection. The spirits guided, the rest was in your hands, he believed. And at that, perhaps salarian necks as well. He made a low sound at the thought, a threatening, flanging hum. Krent. Within his own, real grasp. Krent, with more blood on him.

_Soon._

Margrace turned her head slightly to glance at him, a tense expression on her face, and then she turned away again. Ravikumar swallowed audibly. "Done this sort of thing before, then?"

Garrus tilted his head towards the human, pulled out of his red-tinted thought. "I've led squads since early boot. Sims, mostly, but-"

"But your sims are a bit more no-shitters than ours. I mean, I heard turians can actually get hurt during training."

"If you're stupid and unprepared, you can get hurt doing anything." He snorted. Training had been simple for him, tactics taught at an early age at Father's knee. Even fun, perhaps – though Seiuus' irreverence had helped. He cut off the memory before he growled again. His taloned finger curled tightly around his rifle. "It's the job, you either accept it or don't. If you don't, you're in the wrong place. It's what we do, kid. Are _you_ prepared?"

"Guess I better be." Ravikumar's brow furrowed. The turian seemed mantled with aimed hostility. The lieutenant had no real sympathy for Lorben Krent, but if the turian agent matched his method with his manner, it was going to be a bad day to be a salarian.

"Stay low and behind. They'll be scattered. This time, we really will take them by surprise. Probably be small packs, all scurrying to group up."

"This time. What the hell happened last time?"

Garrus paused before answering. Suspicions flickered through his mind, but there wasn't time for them to root yet. Not when he was about to have a dozen young humans behind him and a still unknown quantity of bastards ahead of him. "...I don't know." _But we're going to find out._

_* * *_

The hatch clanked with a crisp, metallic howl while klaxons bleated irritably. Shouts rang from corridors as Garrus and his team poured forth into the ship. The _Cairo _had overtaken the dark vessel smoothly, with no warning given nor notification sent to Alliance command – a tactical risk Gabriel had taken. Better to get forgiveness than permission, the captain had explained. His tension had fueled tempers across the ship, the sense that the mission had gone personal for more than just Garrus.

The deja vu returned to the turian, swapping Martin's doomed vision for stark reality. The smell of fresh human blood, scorched air, and burnt metal filled the room. The last survivors of the failed assault had been dropped meters away from the hatch they believed would save them – though the _Vaslui_ had been forced to pull away, fates sealed. He sounded his enraged noise once again, his neck tight and the flesh hot under his mandibles. He barked orders, broke the team into three parts, and surged forward to bring the fight to Krent.

* * *

Krent howled more invective, intricate wordworks of anger at the Alliance brats invading his home. Crates were smashed open around him, fresh firepower handed out to his crew to help slow down the steady advance. It came to little; the new assault they faced was implacable, backed by cold fury and alien tactics.

"I _told _you that fucking turian I heard about was going to be a problem." The man gestured towards the main corridor. "Now he's tearing apart the entire place. We've lost lower and first decks, we've got five men down already. We weren't prepared for a second strike."

"No, we weren't, you runt." Krent whirled around and grasped the man's neck in a shaking hand. The human stared defiantly back at him and his fingers twitched around the slender throat reflexively. "And who have I got to blame for that?"

"They didn't get an order for this. I'da got warned; this is on their own, Krent."

"You'll call me _sir,_ you stupid little shit."

"Call you dead if we don't get out of this. Sir." The young man spat the word with cocky anger. He could get away with it. He'd been valuable to Lorben. The salarian considered – perhaps too late – that he'd allowed the man to become _too _valuable. It had been a risk. But he had been greedy, and the human had matched that greed worthily.

He came to a conclusion and squinted into the man's face. Time to pay off that risk. "Get your suit. You're facing them."

"I am not fighting Alliance!"

"We're dead if we don't get out of this. As you say. Fight." Krent tilted his head and fixed the man with a thin, implacably cold smile. He let his biotic aura rise and chill the man further. "Or die. I don't care which." The smile widened as he released his grip. The man fell back, staring at him with plain anger. "But you can leave the turian to me, if that's a comfort. I'm sure he'll insist on it."

* * *

Second squad reported in; they'd taken down two more behind a makeshift fort of canisters and empty crates. The ship thudded with ricochet fire, and the smell of lased and fusing metal made it hard to breath. Smoke rose, but Garrus and his team paid it no attention. They'd lost two men, one badly injured but mobile enough to make it back towards_ Cairo. _The other lay dead, his wounds cauterized on impact. First and second squad teamed back up long enough to clear out the area. Margrace had stopped long enough to close the soldier's eyes and then she'd ensured his killer was dead with a coldly administered double-tap shot to the salarian forehead. Then she and second squad resumed its hunt down side corridors.

Garrus, meanwhile, with the rest of first squad in tow, marched unswervingly towards Command. He had himself taken down two smugglers thus far, each one dropped without more than a second glance towards their corpses to be certain that they were not the one he sought. They were worthless to him.

The opposition grew smaller, but fiercer. They remained blocked at one junction for several minutes while a group of Krent's men passed behind the defenders. They snapped and swore at each other, the words lost in the chaos of weapons fire and flashbangs. Finally, Garrus let his temper loose and rushed them at melee. Shots spanged off his shields while Ravikumar and the other two scrabbled to catch up and cover him. His optic display flashed the icons for _2% shield integrity _at him with frantic rapidity as the last man gurgled. No time to let it recharge. It did not slow him. The three humans gasped for their breath as he continued down the corridor. Towards Krent.

* * *

Stupid of him to march on alone. The coldly rational part of his mind (_a part that always sounded too much like Father_) screeched a warning at him, but hot anger pushed him anyway. His mind wouldn't shut up. The face of Martin – Seiuus. The faces of dead _Vaslui _soldiers – Seiuus. The face under Margrace's hand – Seiuus. Irrational. Distracting. It boiled up, cast his vision red.

Perhaps there was something to the human tradition of not permitting those personally involved in a case to continue. He didn't care.

In any matter, the others would not be far behind. So he assumed. He didn't care. Krent was ahead. For that, he had a care.

* * *

Garrus nearly lost his fight the moment he entered it. The heavy plastisteel canister, still glowing with that unnatural biotic gleam, glanced against his shoulder as he ducked at the last second. Pain thudded through him, though he recovered his stumble and took cover before Krent could ready another throw. Or something worse. Shots followed it up – unlike him, Krent wasn't alone.

Biotics. His breath huffed in startlement and rage – now at himself for nearly being caught unawares by someone that he knew damn well could snap slender turian necks in seconds. He cursed himself for his temper and remained crouched. By the shots he'd seen, it meant at least two more with Krent. Bad odds. He could remain where he was and wait for backup-

But they'd be left open, as he was, the moment they walked in. And his reflexes were sharper than human. They had little chance. He swore to himself once more and committed himself to rasher but hopefully effective tactics.

He slunk around to the far side of the crates he hid behind, knowing there was no way to keep his movement silent. He paused, scraped a little and let his rifle whine slightly as it charged. He listened for that unconscious, ready inhale of his opponents and then flung himself back towards the other side of the crates and around, buying himself a split second as they still presumed his former direction.

He crashed into one gunman, a shot at close range leaving a burnt smell of ozone. _1%_ flared his optic, and he flung the salarian man, knocked unconscious, into the other gunman, the krogan. That familiar salarian smirk flung itself back and around some other crates. A missed biotic toss caused a raucous topple of boxes near the door. Of more concern was the krogan's followup shot. That cut through the last of his shield, lased high on Garrus' arm and he hissed in pain even as he still charged towards his shooter. The krogan fell back against the weight of pissed-off alien cop, took a rifle butt to his face, and then Garrus delivered the coup de grace while he was still stunned.

The krogan's corpse twitched slightly as it fell against the wall.

Garrus didn't take any time to enjoy the rapid kill against bad odds, but fell back and into his prior cover. He grabbed at the wound on his arm and winced. Nothing that couldn't be repaired. Still hurt like the proverbial bitch. He shoved it into the back of his mind and listened, though a soft vibration made him wonder if a battle continued nearby.

Coarse, shouted language from the far side of the room would have suggested Krent instead had taken the wound Garrus bore. His mandibles flexed, marking Krent's position in the room based on the noise. _Keep screaming, you bastard. I'll come get you in a moment._

_* * *_

Krent wasn't howling for the reasons Garrus assumed. The room rumbled again, heavier, a vibration running through the floor. It meant little to the turian crouched in the far side of the room, but the salarian knew what it meant very well.

It meant his trust had been betrayed.

The brat had taken an emergency shuttle, at least one, the vibration meant several had launched – probably to confuse followers. Abandoned ship, abandoned duty. Krent banged his fist against the floor. The little bastard had the finance codes. Their accountants would give up everything to him. Why wouldn't they? He had Krent's authority.

When he'd finished with the turian, he would transmit the order to change all the permissions. Then he'd hunt the boy himself. The thought comforted him.

But first.

"You're the fresh-faced little one, aren't you? Daddy's favorite child, him bending knee at the Citadel, yes? Very honorable family. I killed your friend, I'm told. He died well, for one of your kind. No mewling. No begging – I like that about you turians, no begging. Just that wet little gurgle. All your kind gurgle. Well, we all do, really." He laughed once, sharply. "Not so much the hanar, of course. Difficult for them to. But you take my point."

Nothing. Just faint, soft breath.

"You'll gurgle, too. It's a sweet sound, there's a melody to it. Adds poignancy to death, much as I don't really like killing. Cuts into business. Speaking of - I don't suppose we can make a deal?"

Silence. Not even breath. Had the turian slunk out? Or snuck closer? Krent prepped a pistol, kept his back to the corner of the room and flicked huge, dark eyes around him. An idea occurred to him.

"I didn't think so. So hard to buy your lot off. That said – I _can_ sell you a most interesting prize." Did a shadow flicker along the wall? He lifted his head and watched it, training the Armax pistol in its direction. "Would you like a traitor?"

_"I want nothing from you."_ Soft, sibilant, flanging. And close. Krent tensed.

"Not even my life?"

* * *

Garrus tensed – then shoved. Boxes fell and the salarian opened fire along the wall. Several shots cut close enough for him to smell the ozone as they scorched canned ship's air. He ducked again, scuttled, and fell onto his prey.

Krent reacted with a close-quarters toss. Biotic energy crackled, but Garrus's ferocious clench dragged Krent along with him. They fell together, the pistol knocked from the salarian's hand by the force of the landing. He gasped for air, unprepared for his own power. Garrus reacted quickly and landed on top of Krent. He punched the smuggler, heavy, satisfying blows, turning one side of the man's face and all of his jaw nearly into pulp before taking up the pistol and aiming it into one eye.

"You should shoot," came the low, almost sibiliant salarian voice. It choked slightly on his own blood. "Less paperwork all around."

His hand shook. He swallowed heavily. _I could, yes I could, nobody would mind, would they?_ Justified. But was that enough for him? He leaned down into the man's face, glowering. He felt a cold place above his belly, as if his gizzard stones had turned to sharp ice. His sunken, avian eyes stared into the salarian's huge dark ones. His jaw worked. He could see it – the thin face cut apart by close fire. Cooked dark blood. Shattered, limp eyes. It was almost real. Almost enough.

_"No." _He'd let his temper rule the day. Perhaps too much. "No. You're going in, Krent. You're going to suffer. I'm going to see to it. Every step of the way."

Krent just laughed, the sound of it wet against his beaten jaw.

Garrus allowed himself one more treat. The pistol smacked between the smuggler's eyes, thudding the back of his skull hard against metal deck and Garrus watched the thin face slacken into unconsciousness.

With that, he let his own breath sag out of him in weary accomplishment.


	6. Chapter 6

_6._

It was Ravikumar that finally broke the heavy silence after the op. Half a dozen humans and one turian still dropping dirtied and bloodied combat gear onto waiting racks for aftercare. "Good thing the Captain moved us after that bitch, huh?"

"Volansky's gonna be pissed," murmured Margrace. Blood still coated her hands, smearing on the arms of the combat suit she had yet to remove. Garrus said nothing in response, flicked his gaze up to look at the two and then looked away again. His mind replayed both ops, looking for clues. _Traitor,_ murmured his analytical brain. There were two, had to be. Krent's, and whoever sold out the _Vaslui _to an arms dealer's ambush. He grunted to himself as he racked the assault rifle, making the hard decision to ask a tough question. He had to. There were more deaths to avenge, and one half-pulped salarian in the brig wasn't enough payment for that. Not by far. His anger was tempered by a taste of justice, but it was all too clear he had a ways to go.

* * *

"Agent." Gabriel's voice was warm, waving the turian to a seat on the other side of his command desk. Garrus took it, the usual internal wince at the hard chair._ Swear to spirits, if I ever end up on a human ship as a regular event, I'm bringing my own furniture. "_You and the team did a great job out there. Krent's finally off the spaceways and we'll get the ones that ran soon enough."

"Are we keeping on track with them personally?" Garrus' voice flanged, low and mild, his tone careful to avoid probing too sharply.

Gabriel still shot him a look, pausing before giving response. "Not us. Command wants us to start moving back towards Widow." Command. That meant Volansky. Garrus filed that away. "We'll be plotting the jump before the end of shift change, be back in time for the end of happy hour at all the Citadel bars. Square away all the reports, and then we get you back home. We're done here, agent. I'm very happy with our joint effort."

Garrus flexed his jaw, a sincere attempt at a turian smile, but it didn't reach his eyes. The captain either didn't notice or didn't care. "I'd like to ask a personal favor. As an investigator."

"I'll make no promises, but go ahead."

"I'm very troubled by what happened to the _Vaslui._"

Gabriel nodded his head, steepling his fingers together before him. "I'm aware. You're on record as believing it to be an ambush scenario. I've got a team looking at the possibility, but the prelim suggests so far it was just bad luck."

"Krent implied a traitor on his ship, and I _know_ there was a human on board." Garrus leaned forward, fixed the captain with a sharp, birdlike stare. "I'm not going to take a murderer's word at face value, but he was under duress and paying off his last credits to buy himself a chance. Now, that possibility may or may not mean much on our end, but my experience calls the involved at least two in number. One to inform to Krent who then left him in the lurch when we moved in, and one who was passing along that information."

"I appreciate your attempt to be politic about this, agent, but it sounds to me like you're pretty convinced we've got a wolf in the fold."

"I'm a pessimist, Captain. Scratch one of us, and you get a consistently disappointed idealist. I want to be wrong, sir, and I want to make every effort at proving myself wrong."

Gabriel leaned back, breaking the stare. He tapped a finger on his desk. "You want the ship's logs."

"Full access, sir. I might see what a data-team won't. Or hasn't been allowed to see."

The captain broke into a laugh. "You just asked to see top level officer logs, Garrus. At that point, you're either deadly serious or out of your mind."

The turian tilted his head. "Including yours. Could be both, sir."

Gabriel stopped laughing, though the corners of his mouth still twitched. "Alright, Garrus. I can't doubt your commitment, and I'm as clean as they come. You can check mine right here, right now, with my supervision. I'll release the rest to your room's console. Good enough?"

"Good enough." He dipped his head respectfully.

* * *

It was as the captain swore. No irregularities in the records. Some private correspondence to a wife on Citadel, regular ops reports to Command, several dozen direct communications with Admiral Volansky. Nothing unusual there, considering the hands-on supervision. Garrus idled over these, something still gnawing inside, making his gizzard feel cold and tight. _There's something here. I'm just not seeing it. _It wasn't the captain. His investigative instinct said so. The dreaded hunch said Volansky, but there was nothing. Just nothing.

His talons clicked on the console, running up and down the logfile one more time while the Captain leaned against the wall to watch him. Garrus paused on the last file. The final uploaded copy of _Vaslui's _ill-fated attack, the one that would be stored in every Alliance archive. He watched it for a moment, feeling the familiar sickness as the squad was gunned down, then stopped the footage. Seven minutes, forty-two seconds that ended in carnage. The vid paused on a blood-streaked boot that filled the frame. Garrus shook his head and shut the file. "Thank you, Captain. You're right. There's nothing here."

"Bad luck, agent. Just a bad situation all around." The man nodded, then stuck out his hand. With some hesitation, Garrus took it and found himself in a firm handshake. "Take your pace with the rest of the files, then get some downtime. Promise me that. You've been running full steam for too long."

"Getting twitchy." A weak flex of the mandibles, the itching sense there was still something missing. "Gotcha."

"Dismissed, agent." Gabriel snapped him an easy salute.

* * *

His room was still in disarray, hurried scrambling to pull up personal gear, doublecheck tactics, jot down notes about the attack he'd led. The cot was a mess, earlier clothes left in a pile when he'd changed into a battlesuit. The infopad he'd taken from observation lay on top. The vidfeed from _Vaslui _still filled its screen, like a ghost that refused to stop dogging him. Garrus looked down at it, this copy paused on dazzling gunfire, then pushed it out of the way to start cleaning up his clutter.

Then he stopped, a turian-cut tunic left to dangle from slender hand. "Seven minutes, forty-six seconds," he blurted to himself. He tilted his head, thinking hard. _Wait. _He held like that for most of a minute, then swore, a sharp, turian curse that would have been nothing but harsh noise in a human ear.

* * *

Margrace was lounging against one of the public mess tables when the turian marched into the room. At another table, a group of non-coms played cards. "Hey, Garrus, want to sit with us for d-" She cut herself off as he walked her way without seeming to see her, grabbing up her own infopad with a quick gesture and turning to stalk away. "Okay..." she managed as he disappeared around the corner. A few quick seconds went by and then the sleek head popped back into view.

"Mind if I borrow this?" And then Garrus vanished again, missing the exasperated sigh that followed him.

* * *

Margrace's infopad, still logged into the base console, had synced with _Cairo _when the official vid was pushed out. It gave him a copy of the archives to look at without resorting to his own main console. Garrus, forever pragmatic, had immediately decided that he wanted caution when playing with this. The gnaw in his gizzard grew stronger.

Four seconds. Between his copy and the 'official,' a difference of four seconds. It might mean nothing, just a trim of empty air at the beginning or the end of the footage, but he held to his suspicions and advanced the vid with deliberate caution.

_What can you cut out in four seconds?_ he thought to himself while examining each second, screen by screen._ More importantly, what can you hide? _

An hour of eye-drying scrutiny later, he had his answer. Four seconds of a human face. A gun in his hand. A face full of fear. His jaw pulled tight and he leaned in on the image, predatory.

_Who are you? What are you doing on my prey's ship? _His hand tightened around the borrowed infopad. Dimly, he realized Margrace wouldn't appreciate talon-scratch all over her gear and forced his hand to relax.

_ And why did Volansky, or someone in his office, cut you out of the official record? Son of a bitch, kid. I'm going to get me some goddamn answers._

His breath hissed hot through sharp teeth. _I'm there. I'm right there. Who are you, kid? I get that, and I get all my questions put away for good. I'm gonna have to be careful, though. Stick my neck out, don't watch my tracks, and someone's going to have my head._

_ Do this right, and I'm gonna have someone else's._

He gave a low, throaty-flanged hum. One more hunt before going home. He settled in and got ready to pull up every file, service record, and family tree that he could possibly guess at relating. Starting with Volansky.

He had a growing suspicion he wouldn't have to hunt too hard.


	7. Chapter 7

_7._

_There it is._

Was it as simple as that? Garrus studied the pale human face that fronted the digital dossier. It seemed to be. Maybe it was.

Using the captured images from his unedited footage of the _Vaslui _ambush, Garrus ran an expansive facial comparison scan, starting with all uploaded criminal records and moving next towards his hunch, Alliance Naval files. There were several maybes among the crime lists, vague, half-caught human faces that acted with aliens under pseudonyms and he dutifully listed them in a sidefile just in case. The investigator in him refused to be anything other than properly procedural. The Naval records were trickier; access to them was monitored and he wasn't about to try and circumvent that. He had a gold-clad excuse, but he wagered that wasn't going to cut much when someone notified Admiral Volansky that a turian was nosing through the family tree. He pushed the thought of the impending conversation from his mind and got to searching. Within minutes, he'd found the face of his wolf.

James Haldrin was a twenty four year old Navy recruit with a locked down file. Not much chance of getting into that; he could put in a request but it'd light up the board and cause a major scene. Taking the alternate route, public records didn't give Garrus much in the way of what the kid's current military standing was like, but it did tell him the most important thing of all – his mother was Lira Haldrin _née _Volansky. The deceased niece of a long-standing Alliance admiral. A fast scan told him there were virtually no other relatives left._ When in doubt, look down the bloodline. It is that simple. Loving family member covers the mess of one of his last heirs. Straight out of those old novels, an honest to spirits simple explanation._

_ Small problem remains. These aren't my people. If I were home, I could just call up my own CO or nearly anybody and get him pulled aside for questioning. Get an intervention, no face lost on either end. No reprisals. No vengeance. These are humans. They take the command chain very differently, and I don't think they're going to like bad news coming from a turian._

_ How the hell am I going to blow the whistle on an Alliance admiral and not get my ass kicked? _Garrus began a nervous tap of his talon on his desk, eyes lidding in heavy contemplation.

* * *

Captain Gabriel had a problem himself. The problem took the form of a flashing red light on his command console, a persistent demand for attention. Of course, for Gabriel, this was only symbolic. The real problem was far on the other side of that light, down fatline transmissions, and sitting at his own console ready to bark at him. Gabriel had a hunch that when Volansky got his chance, it was going to be unpleasant. Might as well buy time. He kept his eyes off the light, kept them on Lieutenant Ravikumar instead. He kept his tone mild and soothing. "And that's everything from your ops report."

"Yes, sir."

"Nothing you want to expand on?"

"Sir?" Ravikumar couldn't keep his eyes off the flickering transmission alert.

"I'm just being thorough, Lieutenant. For the sake of the record, and the sake of the turian." He put emphasis in his tone, the sharpness of it drawing the man's attention back to his face. "There's a slight chance Krent might come up with a brutality charge when we hand him in, and you were first on the scene. I need rock solid witness statements."

"I've reported everything, sir. It's all there in the report. Seemed like expected injuries from a righteous takedown to me. The agent was calm when we got there."

"You're an expert on how to read turians now, Lieutenant? I didn't think he'd been that social." He gave the junior officer a wry grin. It was returned with an expression of dead seriousness.

"If he wasn't calm, Captain, that son of a bitch would have been a pile of chunks."

Gabriel nodded. "I know, kid. Dismissed."

"Sir."

The captain waited until the door sealed behind the junior lieutenant, took a deep breath, and hit for the transmission.

* * *

_"Gabriel." _The voice was terse, a razor edge sound of threat.

"Admiral." The captain's tone was pleasant, but his gaze stayed cold and fixed on the console's controls. "I apologize for the delay, one of my lieutenants was filing his final report on the day's mission."

_"Take the turian into custody. Immediately."_

Another modulated pause. "What's the charge?"

_"I have reason to believe he sold information to your salarian prisoner. It's likely he's going to try and cast suspicion on someone else. Probably Alliance. He's going through Navy and public files now; I've got a trace set. We've been duped, Captain." _Conviction and yet more threat in the words.

Gabriel tilted his head, seeming to consider. His posture informed his voice, a politic tone of doubt. "Seems unlikely, Admiral. The agent came to us with the highest of recommendations and-"

The admiral's voice cut him off. _"Put him in the brig. I'm having a ship sent to meet you to pick him up. I'll handle it from here."_

A light brown eyebrow lifted. "This is very irregular, sir. I-"

_"This is an order. Or do you have an objection?"_

A thin, meaningless smile passed across the captain's pale face. "No, sir. I'll have him ready for you."

_"Volansky out." _The connection cut out. The light at last went dark.

"You piece of shit," Gabriel blurted the words. He smacked his hand on the console, preparing to call Ravikumar back to the office.

* * *

_"I'm sorry, Garrus. I really need you to open this door." _The young lieutenant's voice sounded like it was on the edge of panic. _"If you don't, I'm going to have to hit the override and then it all gets dumber than hell from there. C'mon, man." _Ravikumar had seen him fight. Garrus wouldn't, if it came to that, but he could understand the kid's perspective. Nonetheless, he ignored the rustling from the outer corridor and repeatedly tried to key the Captain.

_Volansky. I know something happened. Pick up._ No response. _Shit. _"What's your orders, kid?" He kept the anger out of his flanging voice.

_"Told you. Put you in the brig."_

"After that."

_"I don't know!"_

"I got two hundred credits say I get transferred off this ship and all this goes right down a memory hole. You listening?" He let his eyes drift to his battle kit. Drift away again. _I'm not gonna hurt them. Not their fault. Tamp it down, Vakarian. _The subtle voice of his father in his mind. He tasted grit in his gizzard.

_"All I can do is follow Captain's orders, sir. I trust him."_

"This isn't from the Captain." Dead silence from the other side of the door.

A chime from the console. Garrus slammed a talon into it, chipping the plastic coating. "Captain!"

_"Nothing I can do, agent. This is the way the Navy works sometimes. We're only human." _A pause. Garrus' jaw hung loose in shock at the even tone. _"If I were in your place, I might consider who I could call to pull my ass out of the fire. Just a thought." _The comm cut out. Garrus bit off a sharp curse, then tried to think.

_Weird way to help. What's the captain's angle? Why won't he do something? What the hell is going on here? _He made his mind change gears, looking for a way to accomplish what the human suggested.

_I call my embassy, they're not going to do much. They don't know how different the human system works yet. Might slow things down, probably not enough. Once Volansky gets me, he'll find a way to drop me off the grid._

_ "Garrus!"_

"Give me five minutes. I'm not dressed."

_"Jesus!" _But the kid backed off the banging.

_No time. This is how the Navy works sometimes. _His eyes widened slightly, air hissing in through sharp teeth_. _He tapped his talons across the console, pulling up the codes for emergency communication.

Admirals had to answer to somebody.

* * *

"_This is an Arcturus emergency command line. You are not authorized to transmit here. Sir, I need to ask you to drop communication."_

"This _is_ an emergency, lady. I need to speak to someone in fleet command. I don't know who. Any fleet command. Someone with authorization over your admirals. I don't know how your damn system works!" Garrus continued to make copies of his findings and seeded them in the system, stashed his infopad under the bed in a rash of hope. Anything to try and keep his files, his thin chain of evidence intact. _Yeah, like that won't get found in two minutes flat._

_"Sir, if you continue this communication, you are committing a serious transgression of fed-"_

"Least of my problems! Listen to me – you've got a rogue officer in the middle of aiding and abetting criminal activity!"

_"This is not an authorized channel for alien communication. This transmission has been traced and you will face charges."_

"That's fantastic news! Come get me! Could you put a rush on that?" Sardonic anger thrummed through the air, dual-toned.

_"Sir-" _The voice paused. Garrus heard a rustling through the transmission, then heard another voice carry through the woman's side of the conversation.

_ "I have the call, Commander. Please transfer it." _A rush of electronic clicking, then the new voice resumed. It rumbled like gravel and steel. _"This is Admiral Hackett, commanding officer of Fifth Fleet. Whoever the hell you are, you're making my staff very irritable."_

Garrus took a deep breath. "Agent Garrus Vakarian, turian investigator, currently liased to _SSV Cairo _under Captain Gabriel."

_"And you're bothering me and not him why? You have one minute to sell me on this, agent, and then I make some pissed-off calls to your people."_

Garrus clenched some of his talons into a fist. "He's been ordered by his superior, Admiral Volansky, to take me into custody. Probably to keep me from talking. There's nothing he can do and I needed to get over the admiral's head fast. He's compromised, sir. He's in the middle of committing a criminal act, and I believe it's on behalf of family. He's edited footage of the _Vaslui _attack and more, sir. Of that much I have proof."

There was a very long pause. _"Volansky was one of my mentors when I went through the academy, agent."_

"Sir, I-"

_"Shut up, Vakarian." _Another pause. _"Are you presently resisting arrest?"_

Garrus flexed his mandibles, trying to think of a way to not answer that. The hesitation answered for him.

_"I see. Turn yourself in now." _Garrus' heart felt like it sank past his gizzard with no bottom in sight. Then it lifted again. The sensation was making him tired. _"Use the time to get your case presentation in order. I'll hear all of it once I talk to Gabriel. Hackett out."_

The scratching resumed at the door. _"Garrus!"_

He managed a swallow, retrieved his infopad. Clutched it tightly, like a security rope. Thick turian skin felt like it crawled along his shoulders, a response to varying stress and cold, startled hope. "I'm coming out."


End file.
